Ma Mere
by shan14
Summary: Ashley is nine years old when she realises most other children her age grow up in four bedroom houses.  Ashley's house is a Cathedral. A Fortress. A Dungeon.


Ashley is nine years old when she realises most other children her age grow up in four bedroom houses. They have puppies as pets and school peers as best friends. They go to the park on weekends and the beach on holidays, and if they are very good – Disneyland – but only once.

Ashley's house is a Cathedral. A Fortress. A Dungeon.

She hides in crypts to avoid cleaning her bedroom, which has a view of the Sanctuary's crumbling four wall defences and Gargoyles are suspended behind her purple curtains. She is bitterly disappointed, after viewing _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, that they don't spring to life.

Her best friends are Bigfoot and a former wolf child. Henry has lost his wild instincts; he can now communicate and write as well as Ashley and shows an aptitude for technology that has even Helen astounded. The children's only pets are the multitude of abnormals that inhabit the Sanctuary and most are either too dangerous or too intelligent to fetch when ordered. Instead the children find it hilarious to press themselves against the glass of the dangerous inhabitants enclosures, sticking their tongue to the cool surface and writing backwards messages in the fog they leave.

She had another best friend, once, throughout a long winter in London. He told her stories and carried her through St James Park on his tall shoulders, and gave her his pocket watch too keep that now lies forgotten amongst the overgrown woodlands. He had a beard, she thinks, but has lost sight of his face amongst the terror of the muzzle of a gun and the deathly tight hold Monty had across her chest.

She never tells her mother of that afternoon. And as Uncle James promised, he takes care of everything. She never quite knows if that means he told her mother himself.

Ashley attends the local school. She plays hopscotch and jump rope with her classmates at lunchtime and carries her food in a brown paper bag like the rest of the girls. When they giggle and complain over the food their mum has packed she can only smile, and nod in agreement. She knows her mother had no input in her lunch – rather the hairy beast who also provides her breakfast and dinner is responsible.

Sometimes she goes to the park and watches other families.

She can pretend the young blonde child seated off in the sand box is her brother. And the blonde woman by the swing is her mother, and even better the sandy haired man in jeans and a jumper, laughing as he watches the little boy slip down a slide is in fact her father, and that her turn is next and he will sweep her up in his arms at the bottom and never let go.

She stops going to the park, eventually, because one day she'll want to go home with this family. (_Her friends start asking if her mother can take the group places, but she can hardly explain that Helen spends most weekends in the laboratory, or the infirmary, dissecting creatures and analysing gloop). _It's why she avoids sleepovers too. No friends ever come home to the Sanctuary.

* * *

She is seated in class one day, following the winter break, when they are asked to write a story. Ashley sits up a little straighter. She likes writing; stories and poems and funny tales she shows her mother.

"I want you all to write a story about how you spent your Christmas," informs the teacher, her face lighting up at the prospect of 25 busy little heads and hands leaning over their desk for the next 45 minutes.

Ashley's not sure where to begin. Logically she knows she must start at the beginning, the orientation of her narrative. When, What and Why are summed up easily as Christmas. However, the Who and Where are a little complicated.

They go something like this.

Where: London, England. The London Sanctuary to be specific; another winter of freezing temperatures and icy roads and no actual snow. At least not the kind she's wishing for. Uncle James has a gaggle of little elf like creatures that fascinate her to no end, but a week before Christmas they escape their confines and destroy the tree Ashley spent hours perfecting. When she stumbles through the crowds at Harrods days later there are Santa's elves toys spread everywhere, so she presses her face to the back of Helen's arm and refuses to look up until they've reached the exit.

Who: Her mother, Henry, Uncle James and Declan.

Henry has decided at age 13 he is too old for Santa. He teases her for believing, tricking her into stumbling upon her presents hidden in Helen's extra suitcase, though even then she refuses to believe him. It isn't until Christmas Morning when she opens the exact same presents and he smirks from across the reassembled tree that she bursts into tears, running from the room and the arms of her stricken mother.

Declan avoids her, entirely, and when Helen suggest the three younger ones go to the park he escapes quickly from the reception room and can't be found until the following morning.

Uncle James is hardly better. He coddles her following the incident two years previous. A little more reluctant to let her out of his sight, extra hugs and kisses, and he hovers over mummy too. Leaning across her shoulder to read from a book and brushing his hand against her arm as he smiles. It would be nice, except he has the same desperate look in his eye as when she turned to find Monty had disappeared. Like they all might disappear too.

Ashley writes this down diligently for Mrs. Johnson. She spins a further tale of the mouse that found its way into the tinsel only to be discovered by a startled Henry and rescued by mummy on Christmas Eve. Ashley received toys and writing books and new clothes from Santa, just like all the children in her class, and by the time she is done writing her Christmas _almost_ resembles the others.

Mrs. Johnson finds it a fascinating, if somewhat odd recount. But then again, Mrs. Magnus has always been strange at parent/teacher evenings.

* * *

There are a few stories, however, Ashley refuses to tell, locked deep in her heart alongside afternoons with Monty.

Late on Christmas Eve, after Squeaks the Mouse has been returned safely to his home and Santa's presents have been left out, Ashley descends a flight of stairs to find her mother.

It is dark throughout the Sanctuary, though by no means quiet, and mummy is reading in one of the small rooms whilst waiting for Uncle James to return from his party _(Helen had feigned a headache in difference to attending, and was now curled tightly with Dickens in her lap). _

The old doors whine open slowly and Ashley manages to hide behind a rather inconspicuous Shakespeare bust as a merry James shuffles through the hall. Helen emerges through a doorway, smiling warmly and greeting him, only to laugh shortly as he swings a hand around her waist.

"You, look beautiful tonight Helen, did you know that?" James murmurs, and drops a kiss to her cheek. She blushes deeply.

"Thank you James. I see you had a good evening," she infers, and turns slightly away from his grasp. He holds strong.

"I should kiss you, whilst I can," he slurs instead, and Helen immediately draws stiff. This isn't unchartered territory, by no means, but it is something neither has touched in over 60 years, and certainly not since Ashley was born.

James rather thinks she has ascended to a higher existence since the blonde angel entered the world. Helen has always been a alluring woman, passionate and enchanting, true personification of her mythological namesake. _(Helen of Troy may have launched a thousand ships, but Helen of London has surely enamoured thousands more). _However Ashley's birth has seen her push away those male suitors whom at one time held a key to her covers, if not her heart.

"Helen," he is stumbling, repeatedly, "You can't keep punishing yourself for him, least of all because of Ashley. She deserves a mother and a father," and immediately he is pushed from her.

"And you think you can be that man, do you?" she asks sharply, hand anchored to push at his chest. James features contract painfully, scorching woman that she is, but stays leant forward.

"Helen," he tries to amend, but she will have no part of it. For herein lies the problem between her and James. He believes she feels guilt for Ashley's parentage. Rather, guilt stems from how desperately thankful she is.

There are very few Victorian customs Helen has the desire to adhere too. However there will always be one truth.

John Druitt will remain her fiancé, the man she would marry. And thus he is the only man she can conceive of bearing a child too.

"James, stop it," she orders, and pushes resolutely at his chest. The brilliant man detracts suddenly, face sombre, and moves to bow unsteadily.

"I'm sorry my dear," he stumbles, and equally fumbling, leaves her by the stairs.

Helen's hand drops, clenching tightly, before she allows herself a second to fall against the cool marble pillars.

Ashley watches quietly from behind Shakespeare's immortal image. She hardly knows what she has witnessed; such anguish is inconceivable to her small mind, no matter how overflowing with imagination and possibility it is. She stays hidden a second, long enough to hear the terrible silence broken by her mother's sobs.

Helen turns quickly, moving fluidly up the stairs as her hand comes to rest against her mouth. Ashley clambers after her, soft slippers barely sounding beneath her feet.

She finds her mother curled protectively upon the blankets of her own bed. She remembers the first time she stepped foot in this room, the knowledge that her mother had grown here as a little girl seemed almost inconceivable to her then; Helen has, and always will be, of the same grown image in her mind.

"Mum?" she whispers, as she makes her way towards the tall bed. She can barely make out her mothers sobbing; names drifting unconsciously from her lips, people Ashley will never know. She thinks perhaps one may be James, though it is twisted, moaned desperately amongst gentle tears, and Ashley can only make out its gentle beginnings.

She wonders if it is her father, and steps closer to rest a hand upon Helen's arm.

"Mama," she begs silently, and pulls herself upon the large comforter. She crawls beneath Helen's arms and presses her head to her chest, squeezing her around the middle tightly.

She hears Helen breathe her name and her voice sounds slightly steadier.

* * *

Christmas morning finds them woken by Henry's inquisitive head around the doorframe. He is grinning widely – whilst he doesn't believe in Santa, he does believe in presents, and the pile he knows is waiting beneath the tree.

Ashley too is filled with delight (_she is yet to realise the truth of Henry's heartbreaking words) _and clambers up suddenly. Helen is quick, however, and after greeting the boy she has embraced as her son, holds Ashley steadily to the bed.

"Wait a moment," she whispers to the little girl, as Henry exits the room.

Ashley swivels quickly, and sits cross-legged upon the bed. She can hear the rush of the Sanctuary's inhabitants waking to a fresh morning. Somewhere Uncle James is inquiring as to their whereabouts and Henry responds flippantly that _the girls_ will be down shortly.

Helen, too, is cross-legged on the bed, and for a moment Ashley watches the girlish features of her mother intensify as she smiles. She can imagine her mother long ago brushing blonde locks by this bedside; hand over hand through perfect curls.

Sometimes Ashley is sure her mother is a fairy gifted to this world by magical beings. Helen's eyes dance with a life beyond any Ashley can imagine, and her voice drifts enchantingly through drowsy memories.

Ashley holds magic within her too, she believes. At times it crackles up her spine and flows breathtakingly through her, making her feel solid and suspended at once, like at any moment she may disappear entirely, only to touch ground in some other time and place.

It scares her, such power, yet it lies just out of reach, on the edges of her mind and in the tips of her fingers.

In this time and space, however, Helen is holding a small velvet box enclosed in her palm. The box creaks open, like it has seen many a Christmas morning; inside lays a small silver locket. Engraved delicately, the small heart is nestled amongst red velvet, and Ashley immediately reaches out only to inch away, afraid to touch.

"It belonged to your aunt," Helen explains softly, and Ashley looks upon her with wonder. She is sure she has no family beyond her mother. No aunts and uncles, or cousins. Her grandfather was lost the year before she was born, and her grandmother when Helen was herself a child.

Her father's family lies unknown, as does the man himself.

"Your father," Helen explains delicately, as if they must preserve this precious moment "had three brothers and three sisters," and at this Ashley gasps in astonishment. An entire family she knew nothing of! And where are these people now, she wonders. Could she find them, know of her father perhaps?

"None are alive now, sweetheart, I'm sorry, but they would have loved you very much," murmurs Helen. "This locket was your Aunt Georgiana's. She gave it to me when your father died. I think both would have wanted you to have it."

Ashley's breath catches tightly in her chest, eyes wide as she glances back at the locket. She brushes her finger against it gently before Helen picks it up. Slowly, she draws back Ashley's hair, so like Georgiana's own had been, and lays it around her neck, fastening the ageing clasp tightly.

"Beautiful," she smiles, and draws her daughter close. An overwhelmed Ashley moulds to her mother, one hand caught around the locket.

Her father had laid eyes upon this, she realises. Her aunt had worn it around her neck. She has always been drawn to these people through her mind and blood.

Now, as their future, she also belongs to their past.

* * *

Months later, in the Sanctuary, Ashley reaches for the locket on her bedside.

Helen has spent the past two weeks in Norway, organising and assisting the capture of a fire elemental that has slowly been melting the countries layers of ice, and settling the minds of the many frazzled scientists working there.

She hears a solid knock against her door and calls for the person to enter. It can really only be Biggie, she decides. Henry would never knock.

"I finished my homework," she sighs without turning. "I'll finish cleaning my room too," she adds, and with a sigh flops onto her bed.

The Big Guy hardly moves, she realises, and before she can glance up at him she is attacked from the side by a pair of tickling hands.

She shrieks loudly, the thrill of tickles spreading through her as she laughs loudly, Helen's own mirth filling the room.

"Mama, no!" she calls in hysterics, churning upon the bed before jumping upon her mother's own body. The girl's tussle gaily a moment before Helen pulls the child tighter, Ashley's loud giggles surrounding her.

"I thought you were in Norway?" Ashley asks, grinning as she flops onto her stomach.

"I missed you," smiles Helen, and runs a finger across Ashley's cheek.

"Would you like to go to the park?" she asks suddenly, and Ashley blinks in surprise.

"Really?" she asks, and shuffles closer.

"Yeah," smiles Helen. "I just spent two weeks staring at a computer screen, listening to annoying scientists and trudging through the snow."

Ashley screws her nose up in disgust, the action mirrored by her mother.

"Can we not invite Henry?" Ashley asks suddenly, and Helen smiles in understanding. The boy has reached an awkward teenage stage. Being dragged along to the park by his little sister will only bring tears and tantrums, from both youngsters.

"Just us," nods Helen in agreement.

Ashley grins, and minutes later as they walk hand in hand to the park, presses her fingers to the locket around her neck.

If she pretends hard enough, she can almost imagine her father walking with them.


End file.
